Analyzing Holden Caulfield's The Catcher In The Rye

On the very first page of The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield says “I'll just tell you about this madman stuff that happened to me around last Christmas just before I got pretty rundown and had to come here and take it easy.” Opening the story this way tells me that at the end of the book something will happen to him that will force him to be hospitalized. I wonder what will happen and why he will be admitted. Because of this when I was reading the book I watched for symptoms and continued making

In the novel, The Catcher in the Rye, the protagonist, Holden Caulfield, is introduced as an extremely perplexed boy. The relationship that he holds with his parents is unstable. At many points in the novel, Holden refers the fact that he has a rocky relationship with his parents. He has been kicked out of many private schools he has attended. In the novel, he attends and lives at a school named Pencey. Holden is kicked out for having failed in some of his classes. His instability begins at this point when the reader learns that he doesn’t want to return home to his parents because he knows the fury that will rage from his parents. He has lived a misguided life by attending private schools. Instead of having parents, he has had professors guide him. Holden’s strange personality helps prove the authors assertion that he is mentally instable. Holden’s narration is very scattered. He sometimes interrupts his own conversations by going off on tangent subjects.

It is established early on in The Catcher in the Rye that Holden is an unreliable narrator. This especially plays a large role in how the book can be interpreted because Holden tells the story in any way he wants including choosing what the audience can see. With what information is given in the beginning it can be inferred that the protagonist was sent away to recover from, “this madman stuff that happened to me around Christmas just before I got pretty run-down and had to come here and take it easy," (Ch 1.) Most of the revelations about Holden’s past are not presented in a chronological manner and are instead presented as he is reminded of them.

There are many unexpected changes between childhood and adolescence; one is affected by bodily changes, along with people they know changing around them. Hormones and emotions become uncontrollable, increasing levels of stress and fear during these particular stages of development. The transition between childhood innocence and the brutality of adulthood is long and confusing, often resulting in a loss of self identity. Children tend to look towards the future with great anticipation; whereas many adults tend to constantly reminisce about their childhoods. As a child, the thought is that growing up cannot come soon enough; one cannot appreciate the blissful innocence of childhood until it has passed. The novel, The Catcher in the Rye,

Friendships are like goals; they are easy to make but difficult to keep. J.D Salinger’s character Holden Caulfield from The Catcher in the Rye is a lonesome sixteen-year-old. Salinger’s novel follows the story of Holden as he tries to rescue children’s innocence from being lost to the crippling world of adulthood. Although he perceives his friends as fake, Holden tries to flatter his roommate Stradlater and old friend Sally Hayes into becoming a person like Jane Gallagher: someone that will listen to him.

In the Tribes of Palos Verdes and The Catcher In the Rye, both Jim and Holden struggle to find mental stability in their lives. J.D. Salinger expresses one of Holden's weaknesses in the statement,"I'm just going through a phase right now. Everybody goes through phases and all, don't they?"(15). When someone has a issue they often can’t say they have that problem and blame another reason for it. For Holden in The Catcher In the Rye, he blames his struggles on the phase he is going through.

In the story "The Catcher in the Rye" the 16-year-old protagonist, Holden Caulfield, experiences a conflict that makes him want to relive his childhood memories. Holden has so much hatred toward the adult world and he thinks adults are very phony and lame. J.D Salinger delves into the mentality of a boy that hates adult intimacy and sexuality. Holden ends up in a mental institution to recover from his problems and to overcome his fear of adulthood. This novel is set in the early 1950s and Holden is from New York. Holden is intelligent, but get 's a pink slip from school and leaves Pennsylvania. He went to Pencey Prep, a school where high class students went. Knowing that he went to Pencey, this says that Holden is from a wealthy family. His parents sent him away to Pennsylvania and got rid of him from their household. Ever since then, Holden felt alienated and has never had a proper relationship with anyone. The protagonist has trouble keeping his relationships in good shape, whether it is a friend, girlfriend or teacher.

J.D. Salinger has implemented various themes into the story, The Catcher in the Rye. What caught my eye was the realization that the protagonist: Holden Caulfield, has been recalling past events into a story. All while being confined in a psychiatric facility. Caulfield’s mental health has been a prominent motif in this story about coming of age. I believe, that Holden Caulfield is mentally ill and tries to experience life at the wrong time. With false desires to fulfill, he puts himself into dangerous situations that are ahead of who he actually is, and consequently conflicts with mind and time.

A painful experience can overshadow all aspects of a persons life. In the bildungsroman, The Catcher in the Rye, by J. D. Salinger, there are several examples of this. In this novel, Holden who is the protagonist struggles with exemplifying his individuality and isolating himself, not having the ability to control the way he acts and trying to protect others such as his little sister Phoebe from growing up and attempting to preserve their innocence. By the end of the book, the tragic death of Holden Caulfield’s little brother Allie had impacted the way Holden acts in his everyday life.

The Catcher in the Rye is a book loved by anyone and everyone; of the old times and the new times. The main character, Holden Caulfield, tells us all of his struggles from a Christmas vacation that couldn’t have gone any worse than it did. Through everything that happens with him, his struggles are reflecting what it was like to live in a world of post-World War II and post-Great Depression; alcoholism, self-confusion, and an even deeper, self depression.

I was surprised that Holden agreed to write the paper as it seemed he was still uncomfortable with the idea of Stradlater going on a date with Jane. Holden told me he wrote the paper about his brother, Allie’s left-handed fielder’s mitt. He described his brother as “terrifically intelligent” and one of the nicest people even though he had red hair (38). I could tell he seemed tense when he mentioned that his brother died of leukemia just a few years ago. He also mentioned that when he showed the paper to Stradlater, Stradlater told him” you don’t do one damn thing the way you’re supposed to,” which led Holden to get mad and tear up the paper (41). Holden then told me he decided to leave his school early which made me believe there was nothing else left for him

crossing the street and calling his former friend, Jane, creates Holden to be an unrestful teen searching for the ability to accept one day he will disappear and be in Allie’s place. Furthermore, the fear of another loss results from his fear of disappearing. Just as Allie disappears from Holden’s life his life becomes a frantic worry of another travesty. Holden's world consists of fear and depression because of the possibility “people will not mourn him long, no longer than they mourned Allie, and life in the phony world will go on without him. Like Allie he will lie in the cemetery exposed to the elements” (Miller 69). Holden’s anguish emanates from the loss of himself in the world and the world’s reaction to it rather than the loss of another

The world is not always a fair, but some are able to emerge out of the ashes with nothing more than a scratch, while others perish into the rubble. The same can be said for Holden Caulfield, the protagonist of J.D. Salinger’s novel The Catcher in the Rye, a teenager that suffers and wallow in his misery behind the scene’s, yet lives a life of luxury and debauchery for all to witness. Psychoanalytical theory operates as a catalyst in analyzing and understanding Holden Caulfield in the narrative of The Catcher in the Rye. Holden is introduced as a defeatist, juvenile youngster that has just failed out of another highly prestigious, private

Mr. Caulfield, I regret to inform you that you have been diagnosed with an array of medical conditions. These include antisocial personality disorder, paranoid personality disorder, and anxiety disorder. There are several examples of these presented in your diary. Your pathological lying, irrational hate towards just about anything, and odd fear of disappearing are just a few. These are not normal thoughts, and I will expand on why in the following paragraphs. Make sure to pay attention, Holden, because if you do not heed my warning, then a very slippery slope awaits.

It is mentioned that Holden has a brother called DB and he was very rich and famous and was working in the Hollywood Industries as a writer. Purely based on how he spoke of his brother you could tell that he was somewhat jealous of him and the things he had accomplished. The majority of this part of the book is spent describing Holden and his life.